Dear Ones,
Hope you are enjoying this day and living in the moment. This morning I cleaned and studied and this afternoon we are having company. It is 36 out and we enjoy our afternoon walks. 
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Several mornings I have woken up with the song from Psalm 51 playing in my mind, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit with in me. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of my salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.” I learned that song when I was young, and I have been humming it a lot lately. I find that I need to constantly be aware of and guard against things that would dirty my heart and rob me of my joy.  If you are like me, maybe it’s hard to keep quiet when we see what is happening in our culture; or we quickly judge others in our hearts without knowing the whole story. When people make extreme statements to persuade us a certain way, instead of listening and holding our tongue we’d like to express our opinions and make statements to correct. Our hearts can get dirty mighty quick, if not by what we say, by what we are thinking in our hearts! I have to clean our apartment more often now as it is smaller than our former house and seems to get messed up quickly. But it feels good when I take the time to clean the smudges off the frig, shake the rugs, scrub the floor etc.  Likewise, how quickly our hearts get stained and David tells us where to go to be cleansed, for all of our sins, big or small, are really against the Lord. David says further on in the Psalm, “Purify me and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Now there are sins that are obvious to us and we know we need to confess; but we also have sins that are more hidden and sometimes we are unaware of them but they trip us up. We can ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those sin areas of our lives so we can be clean and have a fresh start. When we hold on to those sin patterns, we miss out on the joy of the Lord. Nothing is worth hanging onto when we fail to experience closeness to Him. We find a wonderful release in our spirit when we admit and come clean and ask for forgiveness. Let us not put it off today!
Challenge for today: Read Psalm 51 as your prayer to the Lord.
Have a blessed day and prayers and love, Judy